


throw roses in the rain

by evewithanapple



Category: Mad Max Series (Movies), Mad Max: Fury Road
Genre: F/F, Implied/Referenced Sexual Assault, Podfic Available
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-30
Updated: 2015-06-30
Packaged: 2018-04-07 01:11:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,715
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4243818
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/evewithanapple/pseuds/evewithanapple
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There are things that only belong to them.</p>
            </blockquote>





	throw roses in the rain

Not long after Cheedo came to the Citadel, the Dag made her a doll.

She retrieved her sewing needles from underneath her mattress (where she’d hidden them to keep Angharad from scratching her face) and tore scraps from her bedsheets to get the rags she needed. Her own hair, she used for thread, knowing somehow that sewing this piece of herself into the doll meant more than just the brief pinch of pain she felt in the moment when she pulled it from her head. When she had finished the doll’s rough body- misshapen, lopsided, but recognizably human and something a young girl might have played with in the old days before the fall- she went to Miss Giddy and asked her to bring her some yarn. When this wish was granted, she stitched two round eyes and a smiling mouth onto the doll’s face, then used the rest of the yarn for hair. It was dark, like Cheedo’s. Dark like- she thought- Cheedo’s mother and sisters’ might be, if she had a mother and sisters. Or if she’d ever had them.

When she’d finished, she took it and went to find Cheedo. Their tower was small, with few places to hide, so it didn’t take her long. Cheedo was curled in a corner behind her bed, her face hidden in her arms, sniffling pathetically. The Dag sat down next to her, waited for her to look up, and held the doll out when she did.

“It’s a worry doll,” she said, as Cheedo took it and carefully fingered the yarn-hair. “Tell her your troubles and they’ll go away.” An old tradition, with even older roots; the Dag couldn’t have explained the logic behind it even if she’d wanted to. But logic wasn’t the point. A doll wasn’t meant to quote facts and figures, it was meant to cuddle and comfort.

“She’s pretty,” Cheedo said, voice trembling. She tucked the doll into the crook of her arm, holding it close to her chest. “Thank you.”

The Dag put an arm around her. “It won’t always be so hard,” she said. Cheedo curled into her touch like a flower seeking sunlight, turning her face against the Dag’s shoulder as she cried. The Dag thought: this one was never meant to bloom in the desert. She ought to have been planted somewhere gentle, in warm, wet soil, where she could be nurtured and fed and raised properly by those who had no other worries but to tend their garden. The harsh sun and arid wastes here weren’t made for the likes of her.

Still, she’d survive. They all would.

* * *

 

When they’d come to the Citadel- each on her own, Joe’s harem slowly growing, prize by prize- they’d been encouraged to recall what had come before. Think on what your life used to be, they were told. Think on what it might have been, and look at what you have now. Be grateful for Immortan Joe’s generosity; he’s given you the sort of luxury you could never have dreamed of before. Always remember where you came from, and thank him for taking you away.

Cheedo had been told this just like the rest of them, and so her past came out in bits and pieces in the days after she arrived. One day, over dinner, she mentioned that her family had had only one plate between them, and one plate’s worth of food with it. Another, as Capable brushed her hair, she said that her mother had prized her above all her siblings for taking after her in looks. Yet again, as they were all lying in their beds after the lights were out, she whispered that she’d once wished to burn a candle all night long, to keep the darkness at bay. They were only scraps, but the Dag was a skilled seamstress in more ways than one, and gradually she was able to piece together where Cheedo had come from.

She’d been born and raised in the Citadel; or if she hadn’t been born there, she’d been brought when she was small enough not to remember anything else. Her family had been as the rest were, scrabbling in the dust for food and water, the weaker ones slowly succumbing to the elements. Cheedo had been the fortunate one: while her siblings had withered, her mother had sheltered and fed her, convinced that her beauty would lift them up one day. Sure enough, Cheedo was eventually noticed by an Immortan who brought her to Joe’s attention, but her mother’s ambitions had fallen short of her daughter’s fate: while Cheedo had been taken away to live with the rest of the wives, her family (or what remained of it by that point) had all been left behind. Whether they were alive or dead now, Cheedo didn’t know, but she feared the worst.

“Mumma _needs_ me,” she said desperately, over and over in those early days. “I’m all she has. What’s she going to do now?” But no safe passage to her old home was forthcoming (nor would it ever be; Joe did not allow his wives to mix with his slaves) and eventually, her anxiety turned inward and curdled.

When that happened, the Dag passed the time telling Cheedo of her own childhood home. She could remember a time and a place outside the Citadel; she recalled her people, desert people who marked their hands with their clan names and traveled from sand dune to sand dune, seeking out whatever oasis they could find. They had been unfortunate enough to drift too close to Gastown, where the leader there had- owing a debt to Joe and wanting to rid his lands of these potentially troublesome drifters- taken the prettiest and the strongest, and killed the rest. The best of his prizes, he had delivered to Joe, and so the Dag had come to the Citadel. According to the marks on her fingers- she hadn’t made any new ones since arriving, lacking both the tools and the motivation- she had passed four thousand, three hundred, and eighty-three days when that happened. Since then, she’d heard no news of the other captives. She assumed they were among the War Boys, or the Immortans, or dead.

“We’re your family now, and you’re ours,” she told Cheedo. “As good as blood and twice as strong. We’ll all take care of each other now.” She looked to the others for agreement; Angharad nodded, Toast grunted her agreement, and Capable opened her arms. Cheedo took the Dag’s hand and held on tight.

* * *

 

They each had their own beds, but Cheedo rarely slept in hers. Instead, she crept from place to place, looking for an acceptable bedmate. Toast grumbled and kicked; Angharad let her stay, but held herself stiff and rigid close to the edge of the bedframe, never allowing for touch. Capable gave up her bed altogether and tucked Cheedo in as a mother might, piling blankets on top of her and gentling her forehead until she fell asleep. Still, it wasn’t what she was after, so she came to the Dag instead. The Dag let her curl in close, snuggling against her like a pup against its mother, arms wrapped around her and squeezed tight. She didn’t mind. She’d slept like this once, on the floor of a tent, almost too far back to remember. Revisiting the experience was a comfort.

The other thing she remembered- the main thing- was voices outside the tent, the ones who guarded the fire. They had sung long into the night, keeping themselves away and warning predators away. Most of their songs were only half-finished, scraps from before the world had fallen apart. Often they were only a few words, repeated over and over to a simple tune. But it was soothing in its simplicity. After the first few nights, when Cheedo whimpered and twitched in her sleep, the Dag started to sing low into her ear until she slept peacefully.

“I'd rather drowned in misery than gone to New South Wales,”[[1](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yXRYuQsg4Gw)] she sang softly. It had been a favourite song of the men who stood guard, but she thought they might have changed their minds, if they’d lived through the capture. Or perhaps they wouldn’t. She wasn’t entirely sure what story the song was meant to tell, anyway; the names were all relics of a time long before hers’, and if any of these civilizations still stood, she didn’t know about it.

“Can you sing something _else_?” Angharad grumbled from several beds over. “We’ve heard that one a dozen times.” The Dag hadn’t sung it more than five by her count, but she let it rest and did as she was asked. She sang “had I the flight of the bronzewing, far over the plains I would fly,”[[2](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pAcVIUn31tY)] quiet and melancholy, and if this song bothered Angharad, she said nothing about it. In the Dag’s arms, Cheedo slept peacefully, head pillowed on her breasts.

* * *

 

The Dag’s own dreams were scarcely more peaceful than Cheedo’s, but if she made any sign of it, no one ever mentioned it to her. She never told the rest of the wives, either; what need did they have of knowing she suffered? They all suffered. Instead, she wrote down the content of each dream, then burned the paper when she was done with it, silently hoping that her thoughts went up in smoke with the paper they were written on.

Cheedo watched her write sometimes, sitting at her elbow as she did it. Cheedo hadn’t known the written word when she’d come to them; Miss Giddy had taught her, but it went slowly. Perhaps, the Dag thought, that was why Joe hadn’t asked her to service him yet. Maybe he wanted her perfect before he’d lay a hand on her. Or maybe he was just too busy tormenting the rest of them; maybe Cheedo was only meant to be ornamental. For her sake, the Dag hoped so.

Her hopes were dashed one afternoon, when Cheedo came to her as she wrote. “I need your ribbons,” she said. “To make myself beautiful.”

The Dag’s hand stilled over the page she was writing; a memory of crows pecking over corpses. “You’re plenty beautiful already. What do you need the ribbons for?”

“For Joe.” Cheedo dropped to her knees so that she was sitting next to the Dag. “I’m to visit him tonight, and I want him to be pleased with me.” Her lip quivered. “If he’s pleased with me, he’ll be kind, won’t he?”

The Dag felt her stomach twist, a sour taste rising in her mouth. She couldn’t lie and tell Cheedo that the night would be a good one; she remembered her own first trip to Joe’s chambers, how a dozen baths couldn’t scrub the feeling of filth from her body afterwards. But neither could she keep her conscience while telling Cheedo what she had to look forward to.

“Come here,” she said, drawing Cheedo close. Cheedo came easily, leaning her head on the Dag’s shoulder. “When he takes you,” the Dag said softly, “go somewhere else in your head. Somewhere far away from here. Stay there until he’s done, and it will be- easier.”

Cheedo curled close against the Dag. “Will it hurt?”

It occurred to the Dag that she didn’t know precisely how old Cheedo was. Old enough to breed, obviously, or Joe would never have taken her. Old enough to have a woman’s body, but perhaps not a woman’s mind. Then again, didn’t they all have women’s minds? Minds that had suffered enough that they’d grown scabbed and tough against the onslaught?

“It will be over soon enough,” she said finally, and pressed a kiss to Cheedo’s forehead. Someday, she thought, when Joe was dead, she would spit on his grave. For Cheedo, and for Toast, and for Angharad and Capable. For all the women who’d been bled empty and tossed aside. For all of them.

Cheedo didn’t return that night. The Dag knew; she waited until their rooms grew light. When she finally did come back, it was nearly mid-morning, and all of the wives sat in silence, painfully aware of the empty space at their table.

Cheedo walked past all of them when she came, into the bedroom and shutting the door behind her. The other four exchanged glances; in silent agreement, the Dag was the one who rose from the table to follow her. She found Cheedo on her bed- their bed by now, really- knees pulled to her chest, head bowed low. The Dag crawled onto the bed next to her and put an arm around her. They sat there quietly for a long time.

“Do you hurt?” the Dag asked finally.

Cheedo shook her head. “He didn’t . . .” She trailed off. “It wasn’t so bad, I think.” She tried to smile. “And it’ll get better, won’t it?”

The Dag kissed Cheedo’s forehead again, then pressed additional small, sweet kisses to her face. “It will,” she agreed. Lying seemed less cruel than it had before; more like a necessity than a frivolous comfort.

* * *

 

Neither of them were Joe’s favourites- that was Angharad, as it always had been- but they were called on at least once every few days. The Dag had thought once, briefly, of pretending at pregnancy to stave him off, but knew that it would never work; the truth would reveal itself sooner rather than later, and then she’d be one step closer to being thrown out. When she’d voiced the notion to Angharad, the latter had said bitterly that being tossed out might be better than being kept here. Long ago, the Dag might have agreed, but not now.

Now there was Cheedo.

She went to her ribbon basket often, when they weren’t called away. None of the ribbons were long, perhaps five inches each, but deft hands could still make a knot in them. The Dag had hands that remembered putting up tents, tying them down into the sand, and so she was adept at it. One day, Cheedo came to sit beside her while she ran her fingers through the ribbons, and the Dag remembered her earlier request. Neither of them had been called on that day, but why not enjoy themselves when there was no one here but them to see it?

So she tied ribbons into Cheedo’s hair. She took a green one- the longest she had- and looped it into a bow, then braided Cheedo’s hair and tied it at the bottom. Then she wound the braid around the crown of Cheedo’s head, and secured it in place with several smaller ribbon scraps. Finally, she tied one around Cheedo’s wrist, and smiled when she was done. “There,” she said. “You’re a princess.”

Cheedo pulled another ribbon- this one bright blue- out of the basket, and wrapped it around the Dag’s head like a crown. “Now we match,” she said, smiling. “And you’re a princess too.”

“Princesses of the Citadel,” the Dag said, affecting a grand accent. “Our first act as ruler will be to have Joe thrown out of his tower and made to walk the desert. Then we’ll open the floodgates so everyone can drink.”

“And then we’ll plant flowers,” Cheedo said. “Like the ones in Miss Giddy’s books.”

“Flowers and vegetables and fruit trees,” the Dag agreed. “And they’ll be all kinds of bright colours, and everyone will have enough to eat.”

Cheedo giggled and grabbed the Dag’s hands. “And we’ll have real clothes!”

“And music and dancing!”

“And we won’t ever be wives again!”

The Dag quiets a little at that. “If we weren’t wives,” she asked, “what would you do? What would you want?”

Cheedo wrinkled her nose. “I don’t know,” she said. “There’s nothing else here, really. Nothing to really want.” Her grew pink. “But I’d still want you nearby,” she said shyly.

“I’m not going to go anywhere,” the Dag promised. “We’ll be together no matter what.”

“No matter what,” Cheedo agreed. Then, to both their surprises, she leaned forward and kissed the Dag on the mouth. It was a brief kiss, and chaste, but there was no mistaking the meaning. Then she pulled back, eyes wide, touching her fingers to her lips as though she’d shocked herself with her own daring.

“No matter what,” the Dag said again, “we’re going to be together.”

Cheedo nodded.

* * *

 

“We’re not _things_ ,” Angharad said bitterly, again and again. Capable nodded. Toast just sighed wearily. And Cheedo, who was due to visit Joe that night, looked at her with disbelief. “What difference does it make?” she asked. “He can do what he likes with us anyway.”

The Dag ran a hand through Cheedo’s hair, soothing. “He can do what he likes with our bodies,” she said, “but he can’t touch our minds.”

“Fat lot of good that does,” said Toast.

Angharad was angry- angrier than usual. They all knew why. No announcement had been made yet, but it was only a matter of time before the physician visited and confirmed what they already knew. “He shouldn’t be able to do either,” she said. “We shouldn’t have to live like this.” Abruptly, she turned on Cheedo, who was standing closest to her. “What’s that in your hair?”

Cheedo pulled nervously at one of her ribbons. “They’re pretty,” she said. “Dag put them in.”

“Well, Dag should take them out,” Angharad snapped. “If he sees you with them-”

“Then what?” the Dag asked, sharper than she usually was with her sisters. “There’s no harm in it. They’re just ribbons.” She looked to Capable for support, but the other woman only shrugged. “You never know.”

With a snarl, the Dag began to pull the ribbons loose from Cheedo’s hair. “Better this way,” she muttered in a distressed Cheedo’s ear. “This way it doesn’t belong to him.”

“What doesn’t belong to him?” Angharad asked. The Dag wished she’d find something else to pick at. Instead of making eye contact with her, the Dag finished pulling the ribbons free, and clutched them tightly in her hand.

“Remember,” Capable said, as she said before all their visits to Joe, “be careful when you speak, and only say something when you’re asked to.”

“Don’t disagree with him,” Toast agreed. Angharad’s nostrils flared, and the Dag thought she might be about to say something caustic, so she jumped in. “Make him feel loved,” she said. “It’s what he wants most, to think we love him. So make him think that.”

Cheedo turned back towards her, eyes and mouth open wide in disbelief. “But I love  _you_!”

Silence fell. Toast’s mouth was a grim line, and she glared at the Dag. Angharad’s eyes gleamed with something that looked like pride. Capable’s face was a study in ambivalence.

“Don’t ever say that where he can hear you,” Toast said fiercely. “You hear me? Not once. Not ever.”

“But-”

The Dag laid a soothing hand on her shoulder. “I love you too,” she said softly, thumb stroking the nape of Cheedo’s neck. “But sometimes it’s better to stay hidden. He doesn’t need to know everything, does he? There’s some things that just belong to us.”

Cheedo’s lip quivered. “But I don’t want to lie!”

“Lying means surviving,” Toast said. Cheedo’s face had gone pale. The Dag put her free hand on Cheedo’s other shoulder, squeezing them both. “Learn it now and learn it fast, or he  _will_  be unkind to you.”

“There’s no need for that,” Capable said quietly. She reached out and took Cheedo’s hand, addressing her directly. “You don’t need to lie to him. Just make sure you say nothing he doesn’t want to hear. Be quiet and obedient, and he won’t harm you.”

“He’s done enough harm already,” Angharad spit. Before anyone could reply to her, though, the door opened and an Imperator stood there- Joe’s personal bodyguard, there to deliver Cheedo for the night. She gave the Dag one last fearful look, and the Dag rubbed the back of her neck one last time, trying to send silent reassurance, before she stepped outside and the door closed behind her. The room was deathly silent in her wake.

“Good job,” Toast said finally, addressing herself to the Dag. “You’ll get her killed or worse someday, I hope you know that.”

The Dag met her gaze steadily. “What’s worse than what we’ve got now?”

They stared at each other for a long time; not even Capable stepped between them. Instead, Angharad was the one to break the silence. “None of us are going to die here,” she said. “I don’t care what happens. I’m going to make sure.”

Toast scoffed. “How’re you gonna do that? Sprout wings and fly through the ceiling?”

Angharad said nothing, but set her mouth in a line. Capable put one hand on her arm, and the other on Toast’s. The Dag wrapped her arms around her stomach and tried not to think of what was to come.

* * *

 

“Everything will be all right,” the Dag said for the dozenth time. “You’ll see.”

Cheedo clung tight to her hand, face pale. “What if they find us? What if-”

“Shhh,” the Dag said, holding a finger to her lips. It was hard to see her way properly in the darkness of the war rig, but she managed it; she knew Cheedo’s face to well to be lost. “Don’t say that. We’re going to the green place, and everything there will be beautiful.” Her stomach lurched, and she thought of the reminder she carried- the baby she’d sworn would never be a warlord. “There will be flowers and fruit trees and everything else we talked about. Remember?”

Cheedo leaned against the Dag’s shoulders, their heads bumping together. “I left my doll at the Citadel,” she said quietly.

The Dag kissed the crown of her head. “I’ll make you another one.”

Beneath them, the War Rig rumbled to life, sending vibrations through all of their bodies. One of them- possibly Angharad- took a deep breath. “Here we go,” she said.

The Dag nodded, pulling Cheedo closer. It was warm and sticky there, right next to the engine, but she didn’t mind. The Rig groaned, then began to move forward, away from the Citadel and towards the green place that promised so much.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[Podfic of] throw roses in the rain](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12839517) by [exmanhater](https://archiveofourown.org/users/exmanhater/pseuds/exmanhater)




End file.
